An Air Force pilot used a commercial GPS system during the Iraq War
While flying an F-16 in the Iraq War, Air Force pilot Raj Shah had a multimillion-dollar global positioning system at his disposal. While flying combat missions in 2006, he had…
That time Google Maps accidentally sparked a military invasion
Computer programming is a complex, detail-oriented skill that is extremely prone to human error. Oftentimes, those little errors are found and fixed before anyone even notices, but when a tech giant like Google makes even the slightest mistake, ther…
Great Falls Nike Fire Control Site W-83 played a critical role in the creation of GPS
During the Cold War’s arms buildup, there were 13 Nike Missile sites erected around the greater Washington D.C. and Baltimore areas. Project Nike was a U.S. Army project proposed in…
5 things you might use everyday that were actually invented for the military
You might be surprised to learn that a lot of the products used in our day to day lives were actually invented for the military. Here’s a brief rundown of a few.
Swiss Air Force accidentally makes commemorative flight over yodeling festival
In an embarrassing moment for the Swiss Air Force’s demo team, the Patrouille Suisse squadron made a low-altitude pass over a yodeling festival when it was supposed to be making a commemorative flight honoring a local aviator a few miles away.
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Marines combine Osprey speed and JPADS precision for optimal training
As the wind swept through the tall green grass in an open field on the Ie Shima coast line, a group of Marines stood in anticipation as they watched a bundle soar across the bright sky. Guided by the Joint Precision Air Drop System, the package pilo…
This Marine Corps tech looks like it’s from ‘Star Wars’
The Marine Corps is integrating new technologies into an existing handheld GPS targeting system that helps Marines locate adversaries on the battlefield.
Fielded in 2017, the Common Laser Range Finder-Integrated Capability is a handheld target…
The Russians are messing with global GPS
On May 15, 2018, under a sunny sky, Russian President Vladimir Putin drove a bright-orange truck in a convoy of construction vehicles for the opening of the Kerch Strait Bridge from Russia to Crimea. At 11 miles long, it is now the longest bridge in…
This is how GPS actually works – and why some devices might stop working
Developed over the course of decades, GPS has become far more ubiquitous than most people realize. Not just for navigation, its extreme accuracy in time keeping (+/- 10 billionths of a second) has been used by countless businesses the world over for…
The Navy is basically jamming a quarter of America
GPS has become increasingly important to our lives. Not only do Waze, Uber, and many other applications heavily rely on global positioning system. Our cellular networks rely on GPS clocks, banking systems, financial markets, and power grids all depe…